Before i try the directive solution with mod_rewrite, is there any other perhaps simpler way that will allow me to do the smae thing, which is "what ever html page the user requests index.pl gets to load"?

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other